Sun buys science software firm

Sun announced it has acquired Dakota Scientific Software (DSS), a South Dakota-based software vendor concentrating on the scientific market.

The buyout of the privately held company was finalized today. All DSS employees will relocate to Sun's Colorado offices, according to a Sun spokesman. No financial terms were disclosed.

DSS develops numerically intensive software for Sun's Solaris operating environment, for use in financial and technical applications. The company developed the Sun Performance Library, part of the Sun Performance WorkShop Fortran line, Sun said.

"These are things that Boeing uses to test airlines before they take off, Nuclear physicists use them to test nuclear reactions, automakers use them test the shape of a car for aerodynamics," the Sun spokesman explained. "It's all Sun now."

DSS has also developed some Windows NT applications for Microsoft, which is part of the reason Sun acquired the company. "We wanted them devoted 100 percent to our business," the Sun spokesman explained.

Also today, Sun announced that it is acquiring Boulder, Colorado-based Redcape Policy Software in a move to boost its policy management software business. Sun will use Redcape's technology in its StorEdge software family, creating software systems that work to automate manual operations used for enterprise storage.